Desperado

I have been reading “The Long Shadows” (1997) which is almost a book within several books as it alternates between three if not four narratives – that of the English biographer of a writer whose last work was a novel about a young Romanian woman who visits England in the 1980s. Her character is clearly that of the young translator who was assigned to the writer when he visited Romania in the 1980s on a British Council scheme. A good atmosphere of the place and period is established.

After completing I googled author Alan Brownjohn’s name since this is the first thing I have read of his  - and discover that the most substantial material on him has been written – at book length - by ……….a Romanian Professor of English whose elegant, downloadable and highly readable book has the marvelous title - Alan Brownjohn and the Desperado Age. Her commentary on The Long Shadows is at pp67-88

And the book is only part of a much wider “British Desperado” project which has yielded two other titles from the Contemporary Literature Press of the University of Bucharest - first The Desperado Age – British literature at the start of the new millenium - another downloadable book (with more than 300 pages) which explains her term “desperado”, locates it in the literary constellation and then assesses the work of 15 writers

and then, the third title, Desperado Interviews is 400 pages long and consists of interviews with about 50 writers from different countries. Highly appropriate given the focus of the previous post!!

A real treasure trove of reading! Just the thing as the carpathian mist continues to envelope the house.......

Good questions.

Good questions get brownie points. from me....I always appreciate good questions.....they are a spur to creative thinking....they take us out of the groove.....In fact I got into the habit latterly, when taking classes of central Asian civil servants, of starting each session by inviting the participants to pose questions about the subject of the "lecture" to which I then responded ex tempore. I then wrote the lecture up afterwards in the light of what followed....I learned a lot!!!

This post starts with the questions an Englishwoman called Lynn Barber has apparently been asking of famous people in British newspapers for more than thirty years - and then moves on to compare with other good interviewers I've noted in my life. The best, for me, has to be the psychiatrist Anthony Clare whose famous interviews of the 80s and 90s on BBC are, I have just discovered, now being rerun

“What do you spend your money on? Do you like buying stuff for others, or yourself? Do you resent paying income tax? What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a dress?

Who were you closest to as a child? 
How often do you phone your mum? 
What would you normally be doing at this moment, if you weren’t doing this? 
What do you do on your own in a hotel room? Why?”

Questions like this are what Lynn Barber uses to open up her celebrity interviews, and I think you can see why. They’re simple, direct, upfront and conversational, but also come at you from an angle. The article which drew my attention is a review of the book Barber has written but is unfortunately behind behind a pay-wall at the London Review of Books

Her questions are inquisitive and extrovert, bold and clever. The ensuing write-ups are stylish and often surprising, gossipy on the surface, precise and controlled underneath. Precise, controlled, and of course ‘unsparing’ – her own word:
‘If anyone else tells me what a lovely lad Rafa Nadal is I shall scream.’
‘Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating Hilary Mantel.’ ‘I don’t want to give a cool appraisal of Jeremy Irons … I just want to boil him in oil.’
Richard Harris at the Savoy in 1990, ‘playing pocket billiards’ through his tracksuit bottoms.
Rafael Nadal in Rome in 2011, ‘lying on a massage table with his flies undone, affording me a good view of his Armani underpants – Armani being one of his many sponsors, natch.’

If this is what good interviewing is now about, beam me up Scottie! I want the 70s back – give me Oriana Fallaci any day. Chris Hitchens bade Fallaci a fond and eloquent farewell in 2006

With Oriana Fallaci's demise at 77 from a host of cancers, in September, in her beloved Florence, there also died something of the art of the interview. Her absolutely heroic period was that of the 1970s, probably the last chance we had of staving off the complete triumph of celebrity culture. Throughout that decade, she scoured the globe, badgering the famous and the powerful and the self-important until they agreed to talk with her, and then reducing them to human scale. Facing Colonel Qaddafi in Libya, she bluntly asked him, "Do you know you are so unloved and unliked?" And she didn't spare figures who enjoyed more general approval, either.

As a warm-up with Lech Walesa, she put Poland's leading anti-Communist at his ease by inquiring, "Has anyone ever told you that you resemble Stalin? I mean physically. Yes, same nose, same profile, same features, same moustache. And same height, I believe, same size."

People began to sneer and gossip, saying that Oriana was just a confrontational bitch who used her femininity to get results, and who goaded men into saying incriminating things. I remember having it whispered to me that she would leave the transcript of the answers untouched but rephrase her original questions so that they seemed more penetrating than they had really been. As it happens, I found an opportunity to check that last rumour. During her interview with President Makarios, of Cyprus, who was also a Greek Orthodox patriarch, she had asked him straight-out if he was over-fond of women, and more or less got him to admit that his silence in response to her direct questioning was a confession. 

Many Greek Cypriots of my acquaintance were scandalized, and quite certain that their beloved leader would never have spoken that way. I knew the old boy slightly, and took the chance to ask him if he had read the relevant chapter. "Oh yes," he said, with perfect gravity. "It is just as I remember it."

Occasionally, Oriana's interviews actually influenced history, or at the least the pace and rhythm of events. Interviewing Pakistan's leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto just after the war with India over Bangladesh, she induced him to say what he really thought of his opposite number in India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi ("a diligent drudge of a schoolgirl, a woman devoid of initiative and imagination.… She should have half her father's talent!"). Demanding a full copy of the text, Mrs. Gandhi thereupon declined to attend the proposed signing of a peace agreement with Pakistan.
Bhutto had to pursue Oriana, through a diplomatic envoy, all the way to Addis Ababa, to which she had journeyed to interview Emperor Haile Selassie. Bhutto's ambassador begged her to disown the Gandhi parts, and hysterically claimed that the lives of 600 million people were at stake if she did not. One of the hardest things to resist, for reporters and journalists, is the appeal to the world-shaking importance of their work and the need for them to be "responsible." Oriana declined to oblige, and Mr. Bhutto duly had to eat his plate of crow. Future "access" to the powerful meant absolutely nothing to her: she acted as if she had one chance to make the record and so did they.

Perhaps only one Western journalist ever managed to interview Ayatollah Khomeini twice. And from those long discussions we learned an enormous amount about the nature of the adamant theocracy that he was bent upon instituting. The second session was an achievement in itself, since Oriana had terminated the first one by wrenching off the all-enveloping chador she had been compelled to wear and calling it a "stupid, medieval rag."

She told me that after this moment of drama she had been taken aside by Khomeini's son, who confided in her that it had been the only time in his life that he had seen his father laugh. 

Do you really remember any recent interview with a major politician? Usually, the only thing that stands out in the mind is some stupid gaffe or piece of rambling incoherence. And if you go and check the original, it generally turns out that this was prompted by a dull or rambling question. Try reading the next transcript of a presidential "news conference," and see which makes you whimper more: the chief executive's train-wreck syntax or the lame and contrived promptings from the press.
 Oriana's questions were tautly phrased and persistent. She researched her subjects minutely before going to see them, and each one of her published transcripts was preceded by an essay of several pages in length concerning the politics and the mentality of the interviewee. She proceeded, as Jeeves used to phrase it, from an appreciation of "the psychology of the individual."

Thus, a provocative or impudent question from her would not be a vulgar attempt to shock but a well-timed challenge, usually after a lot of listening, and often taking the form of a statement. (To Yasser Arafat: "Conclusion: you don't at all want the peace that everyone is hoping for.") The commonest and easiest way of explaining the decay of interviewing is to attribute it to the short-term and showbiz values of TV. But there's no innate reason why this should be true.

At the dawn of the television age, John Freeman—a former cabinet minister and diplomat, and editor of the New Statesman—established an inquisitorial style probably borrowed in part from Ed Murrow, and provided astonishing glimpses of hitherto reclusive public figures like Evelyn Waugh.

Television allows points to be pressed and repeated: the BBC's Jeremy Paxman once put the same question a dozen times to a Tory politician who was being evasive. It also brought us the huge advantage of the close-up, which did immense damage to shifty types like Richard Nixon.

Roadmaps

These weeks I should have been working on my “Scottish home thoughts from abroad” – clearing my mind, with the help of the dozen or so new books I’ve acquired, on the Scottish independence issue.

But, as usual, I have been distracted - this time by the work I have been doing on my little Romanian Guide/anthology  - sparked off by the pending visit of one of my daughters and building on the series of ten or so posts I did at the turn of the year..

I’ve reached the final haul – my compendium stretches now to 125 pages and about 400 hyperlinks. It’s been quite an intensive effort and I’m now trying to draw my thoughts together for the final, summary section.

I have tried to act as a modest guide – identifying what’s available and giving hyperlinks to other people’s text (in some cases entire books), images and music.

Even if I say so myself, I don’t know of any other such effort – in the depth and breadth of the references and pointers given. I’ve found a lot of misuse of the concept of a “Roadmap” in political circles in the past couple of decades but I think I can say that this is the best “Roadmap of Romania” I’ve seen!!

Even if I wanted to, I could not really sum this country up. I have known it for 23 years; it has become my home-base – at least, in the past five years, for half of the time.

When you read the older material which can be accessed – text and photographs – you do get a profound sense of the richness of Romanian society between 1880 and 1940 – rich in both possessions and characters. The architecture gives a clear sense of it – grand in the cities and individualistic if not eccentric in the towns and villages. 

Romania has lost a lot since – so many of its writers lost to either persecution or migration; so many of the more recent younger generation seeking their professional rewards abroad….

Despite the almost American nature of the spirit which is evident in the Bucharest streets, on commercial television and in the fixation with flashy cars and speed, the past is still clearly evident – in both good and bad forms.

All countries which were in the area of Soviet influence experienced suffered deprivations and repression – in one degree or another. It would be a bit invidious to encourage a league table of suffering although Ceaucescu’s invasion of women’s intimacy and the scale of (illegal) abortions that led to must rank as one of the worst measures in post-war Europe – along with the digging of the Danube canal and wanton destruction of villages in the 1980s.

Equally, however, more of us who were lucky enough not to experience the post-war communist repression should have the honesty to recognize the undoubted improvements to social life which such regimes generally brought to the life of peasants and workers and, in particular, their children - the parents of the present generation.

I have learned a lot about the richness of Romanian culture in the few weeks I have been drafting what was originally about 10 pages of blogposts. 
In a future post I will give some recommendations for best “freebie” reads and other goodies.

The map which heads the post is a marvellous panorama  of Southern Transylvania issued by a German company - it superbly shows my range from the northern angle. Most original!
I'm up in the  verytop left

A window to Romania's past

I’m at the fine-tuning stage of the guide – giving me the freedom to surf some of the links I had added to the text which lead to others I had not had the chance to explore. For example some of the book references in a discussion thread about Romanian literature .

But it was the back issues of the francophone bimonthly Regard which led me via an interview to what seems (probably wrongly) to be a typically surreal bit of recent writing by a young historian Choosing your Ancestors - an imaginary genealogical journey to Romanian Boyars.(2013) If you scroll further down the link(and have automatic translate) you will see that the launch (last August) was kicked off by Romania’s two greatest historians - Lucian Boia (whose family name google automatic magnificently and variously translates as “pulveriser” or “paprika”!) and Neagu Djuvara

It was author Filip Lucian-Iorga’s well-connected website which led to me the tremendous photo archives Costica Acsinte Archive celebrating the work of a man born in 1897 who was a war photographer in the First World War and then set up shop in the town of Slobozia about 70 kms east of Bucharest.

The site is a unique record of life in those times – and encourages readers to write stories around particular photos!!

Mutuality

Amazing how silent it is when the mist is shrouding the valley….neither birds, cars, planes nor cicadas make any noise in this damp, dreich weather. Even the dog barks are faint!

My neighbour’s new pig is ailing – so had the vet on Saturday. His 2 new lambs are already attached to him and squawk at the gate for attention.

Maritsa has once again to go to hospital on Wednesday – a 100 km round trip – for some more checks. She has not been sleeping or eating well this past couple of years. She will be 81 in a month. Viciu is hale and hearty  and will be 88 on 22 June.

Apart from Daniela - and Vlad in Bucharest’s English bookshop -  they are my only link with Romania. Little wonder that some people wonder why I am here…..Not easy to explain what meaning a special house and special valley can give a life!

Here I am totally myself – devoting almost every minute to contemplation. 

I don’t want to sound religious  - but the books, music  and views do invite deep thought - and the scribbles which, for me, go with that. 

I generally walk into my neighbours’ uninvited and sometimes catch them reading the bible….. Earlier today my old next-door neighbor came with a couple of eggs for me – in return I give her coffee and the mobile to talk to Daniela with.  She then selects whatever delicacies appeal to her – today it was a couple of kiwis. But I had a surprise package of small ocean fish for her – which is her favourite.

Of such is mutuality made

Fantasy

If I were asked about an unfulfilled dream – it would probably be a radio station on which I could play my choice of music (a specific blend of mid-East and classic); read from texts which have caught my eye; pay tribute to those who in different ways have inspired me; have conversations…. A much more modest version of Clive James’ famous site

Only trouble is that I would have to erect a radio mast – my Vodafone internet stick hardly allows me enough capacity for routine uploading and downloading….

I loved the measured tones in which Alistair Cooke delivered his Letter from America (I always used to scurry to the radio when I heard his piece begin); the maverick selections of John Peel's midnight jazz; and the global reach and elegance of BBC From Our Own Correspondents… 

A radio station, of course, does not allow images – perhaps just as well given how we are swamped by visuals in our everyday lives….But it means that I couldn’t really share my love of Bulgarian paintings or the caricatures I’m so fond of

For the past 24 hours the house has been fog-bound – remember I’m 1,400 metres up! And it’s only 4 degrees out on the verandah!

It’s been a dreich May and I’ve just been consulting the local records – they seem to confirm my feeling with temperature yesterday being just half that of 31 May 2011. But then I look at rainfall and am amazed at what I see. Contrary to what I had imagined, the wettest month for this part of the Carpathian mountains is apparently……July! ( 68mm); then June with 54; May and October tie for 3^rd wettest (43). The driest months are actually November and February (13) and January (17)!!

Meanwhile....

A busy week down in the plains – rather book-focused with an initial compulsory pit-stop at the English bookshop where Vlad was able to take a few minutes off to talk with us over coffee. I left with 2-3 ordered books and several recommendations. The Brecht biography (beautiful edition); what looks a masterly Journey to Portugal published in 1979 by Nobel prize-winner Jose Saramago; and Daunderlust –dispatches from Unreported Scotland were in the former category – The Hall of Uselessness – collected essays by one, Simon Leys from Belgium/Australia/China looks very much my sort of book; Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s The Time Regulation Institute;  and a book on Ghenhis Khan were three casual purchases recommended by Vlad.

I had been busy the previous week with my short, smart guide to Romania which has, at the moment, the title “Encountering Romania” and can be read (hopefully) on the link in its present form – and duly printed it out to see what is looks like in that form. Always a test!

The remaindered bookshop yielded a couple of superb productions about William Morris and Tiffany – to inspire Daniela in her glass painting.

Mid-week gave the opportunity to visit the 2014 Bookfest. The opening day was quiet – and yielded only 2 books – a nice edition of Deletant’s "Ceaucesu and the Securitate" for 4 euros and a doorstopper of a book which I bought (for 6 euros) simply for what it might reveal about the Romanian intellectual mind – "The Destiny of Europe" is just an extensive series of booknotes masquerading as a book by Andrei Marga whose 10 page CV should carry a health warning. "Nonsense on stilts" the best review.....

William McIlvanney joins the Olympians

Today sees my highest monthly viewing figure ever – and there’s still another full week to go before the end of the month. I’ve been rather focused on Romania and Scotland in the last month – so I’m grateful to those readers who don’t necessarily share these interests for their patience.

You can see the 7 top posts for this month (from hits) at the right-hand side – 1 about Europe; 4 about Scotland, 1 on travel – those 6 are all recent. But top billing is still this strange “backbone” one – more than 3 years old – whose title refers to an EC document about aid assistance which I was critiquing then. I have tried to suggest to readers that there are better things to read – but people just keep on punching that button. I don’t understand why!

  

Paul Mason, one of the BBC economics correspondent (all of whom do excellent blogs), ran a lovely Christmas challenge in 2010 – the 50 books which your library has to have. The challenge was apparently first made in 1930 by an American journalist who received a letter from a friend who wrote: 

"I want no more than fifty books. And none of them modern; that is, no novels that are coming off the presses these last ten years. Are there fifty intelligent books in the world? If you have time send along a list of fifty books, I promise to buy them and have them beautifully bound. I am consulting you as I would my lawyer. I have not time to develop a literary consciousness at my age. So if you were cutting your own library down to fifty books, which books would you keep?"

Mason made the challenge more difficult by preventing us from consulting our shelves or the internet – so I just managed to get my suggestions in before the discussion thread closed (It’s number 81). I then took time to reflect more and consult some booklists and then posted on this blog.

A library should be for consulting – the glories of novels, short stories, poetry, essays should be available there but also art and human knowledge. With only 50 books allowed, novels (of any sort) will have to be excluded - which means no “Buddenbrooks” (Thomas Mann) or “Candide” (Voltaire) let alone any of the powerful South Americans (Jorge Amado's "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon", Allende’s “Eva Luna”, Marquez’s , “Love in the Time of Cholera” , Llosa ‘s “The War of the End of the World”) or Yehoshuova’s “The Liberated Bride” from Israel.

However, some books come in multi-volume collections eg Lewis Crassic Gibbon’s “Sunset Song”; Lawrence Durrell’s “The Alexandrian Quartet”; Olivia Manning’s “Balkan Trilogy”; and Naguib Mahfouz’s “Children of the Alley” and therefore give good bangs for bucks. Perhaps they might be allowed to stay.
And remember what Nassim Taleb calls Umberto Eco's "antilibrary" concept - that read books are less valuable than unread ones - a library should be a research tool. Collections of essays, poetry and short stories also give much more reading per book (unless it’s War and Peace) - so the collected poetry of Brecht, TS Eliot, Norman McCaig and WS Graham would be the first four books; as well as the Collected Short Stories of Nabokov, William Trevor, Carol Shields, Heinrich Boell and Alice Munro; and the essays of Montaigne.

If allowed, I would also have a few collections of painters eg the Russian Itinerants. Chuck in an Etymology and a couple of overviews of intellectual endeavours of recent times such as Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and Peter Watson’s “A Terrible Beauty” - and I would then have space for 35 individual titles.

About 30 non-fiction titles then followed – interesting that less than 10 were by British writers. Now I would probably question only the inclusion of Taleb..... 

Thanks to cheating (selecting collections), I was actually left with 6 empty spots – which I never got round to filling. 

Obviously, in the light of yesterday’s post about William McIlvanny, least a couple of his titles would go in to fill those empty spots.